Lost in my Dreams
by The Gibbslets
Summary: Tiva Song fic to Unkle Bob's Swans. How will DiNozzo React when he looses her too soon? "I'm fake at the seams and lost in my dreams and I want you to know that I can't let you go."
1. Short

This is a year jerker to write. I am a full Tiva shipper and I would die if they killed either of them off. I just feel as I am searching for chemistry in my other stories I have to write a short AU one.

_By my side,you'll never my side,you'll. never. be.  
'Cause I'm fake at the seams,I'm lost in my dreams, andAnd I want you to know, that I can't let you go.  
_

Everyday in 7 years nothing had changed. The two circling each other with gritted teeth and bated breath. With each lunge leaving a mark that had to heal. Things may well be the same. If only they had seen what the other felt. They would see a reflection of their own feelings in the other. A good fit. Every comment he made she had a answer to. An unending dance. Maybe would never draw to a close.

So much detail and so much history could be snuffed out in a mere second. Anything he would have to say to her would fall away and seem meaningless if she wasn't there to hear it. Her eyes no longer saw and her heart no longer beat. She had touched his life and stirred it up as he watched. She had left a Ziva shaped mark in his consciousness. It was still there even though she wasn't. What could kill her? She was a warrior. She was rock solid. It never occurred to him that he was one of the few people she had cried in front of. Now Ziva was away and he was moored to this planet by hardly anything. She had taken all his bonds.

Each other times she had died he had bought her back. Perhaps again?

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight...

He pumped her heart with his hands. Even though her eyes were closed and still. He pushed to keep her here. Let her live his thoughts chanted, they screamed. He couldn't live without her. Hadn't he already said that.

Twenty three, twenty four, twenty five, twenty six, twenty seven, twenty eight, twenty nine...

His breath didn't even bring her back. In a flash strangers, paramedics took over. Pulled him aside. He wanted to yell no but he hadn't the emotional strength he just stared. Refusing to believe it. Like a child.

All was black.

Gibbs was there, talking to him, yelling at him, though his eyes were glazed over. Gibbs was shaking his arms then he let his head fall and he sat beside Tony defeated.

Not again! Not again! What about Kate? What about Paula and Jenny? Now Ziva? Never Ziva. He was collapsing inside. Gibbs was giving up. He never gave up. Never on Ziva.

"Ziva?" He whispered. Calling her. Hoping for here to run over and whack him over the head.

Everything was bad in life now. Home was empty of her memory's. Everything about work hurt. The elevator, the bathrooms, her desk. He held it all back. He was no longer the shell shocked agent sitting in his partners blood in the parking lot. He was the month on agent. Supposed to have buried her and moved on. Now he was broken.

"Tony." Gibbs looked old. He had bags under his eyes and his hair was shaggy. He didn't even drink coffee anymore. He was nice all the time and he had no strength to bate him. It was his first day back since he had tried to quit three weeks ago. Gibbs had slapped his head and then hugged him. He couldn't loose another kid. Not after...

He stood there in the squad room without speaking. He saw McGee wasn't here. He was mostly with Abby these days. Vance had tried to buck them up but had stopped short when they wore their broken hearts on their sleeves. No proper cases came their way. He began to experience that blur he had met when he first thought Ziva was dead. Words didn't make sense anymore. He found himself on the floor behind her desk by the end of the night. A tear slipped down his face. It smelt like her as the memory's came flooding back. he closed his eyes and imagined she had never left.

"Ziva. Why did I waste a day. Why did you go. Why didn't I tell you... I love you." he admitted this to himself for the first time. It made it all 100 times worse. He began to shake. Unaware that Gibbs could hear him. And was also shedding tears.

"I miss you so much." He exhaled and opened his eyes. The illusion was gone.

Nights when Tony fought his battle to sleep were filled with dreams he could never remember afterwords except smells of disinfectant and cleanliness. And a voice. An impossible voice. Saying things he couldn't identify. Calling him?

Wakefulness bought no gifts. Food had no taste. Days rushed in to weeks which blurred to months. 6 Zivaless months.

"Gibbs." Tony addressed him as he sat in the mans basement with bourbon and the boat. "Gibbs I don't know what to do. What do I do?"

Gibbs would have answers. He had lost a lot more in one go than Tony had. He had to have a strand of advise.

"You have to get out of your head case. Back to work. Tire your self out so you won't dream." Gibbs replied from the shadows as he rocked his neat drink.

"What about the regrets?" Tony asked "Gibbs what if she was it?"

"You loved her?" Gibbs asked in a little bit of surprise. Not disapproving.

"Yes, I don't know, I think I did." He shook his head trying to get it clear. "It makes it worse to address it. Gibbs I could have married her in time,"

Gibbs tried to interrupt but Tony shook his head and pushed on

"I don't care how we got there. We could have gotten married and had kids and grew old together!" His voice shook as he addressed the impossible. "I mean it's not like we were going to retire and never see each other again after we grew up. I would have done something before then!"

"You don't have regrets. You both found out what it was like when things went bad between you. She almost died." Gibbs added

"I saved her." Tony moaned at the memory. Her back in his arm as he half carried her out of her prison. Her panting breath. He assuring her.

"I never want our family to get hurt. That's why rule 12 exists. Break ups can affect us all." Gibbs lowered his head as he spoke.

"You broke the family when you let Ziva go head to head with Dave Massey the murdering psychopath." Tony had let his rage take over him.

"I know."

Gibbs sounded pitiful and small and Tony felt a lurch of guilt from his words.

"I am sorry Gibbs. It wasn't your fault." Tony whispered as he leaned his head against the cool frame of the boat.

"It wasn't anybody's fault." Gibbs said sternly.

After that confrontation I had alot to think about. Did I love her? I soon relised that yes. Yes I did. That night I slept. I dreamed.

Her voice was back so I could hear it this time. "Tony? Tony? Can you hear me? Tony I love you. I should have told you sooner. I should have told you right when I relised. When you looked at me back at NCIS after you saved me. After that I was in love with you." a brush of breath on his face and lips on his own. And the dream was over. That night became special to him. The next day they got a case. A one day case that kept them busy. Tony felt tired when he got home. He fell asleep with a smile. Ziva didn't speak to him that night. He could just hear her breathing. Like she was sleeping.

Some days he would pretend that she was with him. Just in the shadows. Laughing with him and still at her desk, which remained un-cleaned out and unfilled, she would sit there shooting him flirty looks and witty remarks. Just like normal. One night he was sleeping when he felt a heart beat foreign to his own like it was lying on his chest. He had woken up with a jump and started calling for her, hoping she was actually there. But she wasn't.

Sleeping became easier when he pretended his dead partner was sleeping just close enough to hear her breathing.


	2. Lived

**Going Crazy**

"You look better DiNozzo." Gibbs commented as Tony walked in to the office one day. Accompanied by Ziva's imaginary presence.

He smiled back in acknowledgement of Gibbs comment and heard Ziva saying "Smile properly. That's not my goofy old Tony smile."

"It was only for you." he muttered as he sat at his desk and she at hers. "I love you, I love you, I love you." He thought as loudly as he could so she could hear him.

A call out from Gibbs promised distraction and a good nights sleep. Gibbs drove. The roads were slippery from the rain and they were lucky not to be the casualties.

"I always admired Gibbs driving." Ziva's voice said serenely. He felt a jolt. Some of her voices were made by his subconscious. Her voice began to sound less an less like her. The other voice was breathy and quiet and Ziva.

"You would like it it's exactly like yo-" he began to think but his breath was taken away as he felt her lips brush his head.

The scream of tires. A truck slipped and began to swing out of control over the road in front of them. Tony heard the car crumble like ash he felt an almighty jolt through his body. Like his veins started pumping a new way and his heart found a new rhythm to beat. His lungs emptied then filled too much. He opened his eyes and saw...

The truck had regained control and avoided them. It hadn't hit even though he had felt it. It was driving away. He felt so many supernatural and imaginary sensations. Hand clutching his arm. Someone hugging him. Lips on his. A greeting? A farewell?

"I am back don't worry." She was back so he didn't worry.

Was he going crazy? Hearing and feeling things? Was this just a new coping mechanism? He hoped so. He didn't want some phyc taking his imaginary Ziva from him.

The day ended to little conclusion in the case as it turned out to be a suicide. No bad guy to catch. Just a family to tell the bad news to. Not exactly the perfect day.

He crossed the road to enter his apartment. He looked both way and then looked down as he began to walk. His phone had vibrated. He checked it to see no one calling and no text message. Had he imagined it? A screech of tires and for the second time that day he was struck by a moving vehicle. The car struck hard and he tumbled to the ground. Surely dead.

A flash of pain and light and he was suddenly awake in bed. Sitting and panting from his bad dream. He placed his hand over his face and breathed again heavily. Wondering what had caused that realistic dream. It was coming back. He had collapsed in to bed after leaving work and writing up the suicide case. He had just dreamed being hit by a car. Or had he. He felt his ribs and head. All fine. But the pain had been so real.

He cleared his throat, trying to be rid of the clogged feeling inside of it.

But he still felt choked up. He tried to lie back down but the swirling thoughts in his head made him restless. He spent the rest of the night tossing and turning with only small fragments of sleep in between. It felt like he was going back to his old habits of little sleep and more thinking about her.

He woke up in the morning feeling sick and unrested, his feelings didn't get past Gibbs. He had been watching his senior field agents behavior for a while and his concern was growing he tried to trap Tony in the elevator and the squad room but he always seemed to be able to avoid his approaches successfully. Abby even tried to talk to him but he would continually brush her off seriously.

He was not Tony as everyone knew him. He was a dark man. He would charge in to danger where ever he could. So as it came. When they got a call out to go to a wear house that led to the case they were following Tony broke protocol and went in his own. He pushed the heavy metal doors and entered the large shed that had a beamed roof and high plain walls. Tony slid through the door with his gun out, he peered through the darkness that shadowed over once the door shut. And saw a figure with his back to him. They must have known he was there because he hadn't exactly been quiet.

"Federal agent." he declared. The man turned. Shivering. Holding a gun pointed at Tonys heart.

It all happened so fast. One finger movement and he was stuck down. Tony DiNozzo lay there bleeding while his eyes saw nothing and all he could hear was a woman crying.

The darkness seemed to be more than nothing but less then life. It flowed around him like a calm river flow and it sent him souring out of someone else's accord. After a while of not thinking nor feeling he began to feel something. Fatigue. Like he was waking up to early.

Suddenly everything was bright being his closed lids. He could still hear her crying beside him.

"Ziva." he struggled to speak as his lips felt stiff and un-used.

The crying stopped and he felt something on his had. Warm fingers. But surely he had dyed. So why all of this?

"Ziva." he whispered more successfully this time. As he fought harder to open his eyes and see her face. That he could sense was near by.

"Tony." her voice replied. In a hushed hurried tone.

And with an almighty effort, helped by the sound if her voice, he opened his eyes.

In hospital. In a bed surrounded by tubes and plugs, with Ziva's hand in his. Then he saw her. Her face was warm and sad looking. Her eyes were wet and wide. Her hair fell curly on her shoulders and she was wearing a sweater he recognized as his own.

"What?" he tried to understand how this was possible. Had she survived?

"Shhhh." she whispered as fresh tears dripped down her cheeks and happiness filled her eyes. She stroked his cheek and leaned forward, squeezing his hand.

"Tony you were shot. You jumped in front of the bullet to save me from Dave Massey shooting at me." she prodded him gently. "You almost died you idiot." she hugged his arm as he continued to look confused.

So all of her dying had been a dream.

"Ziva thank god." he used all his strength to pull her close and embrace her.

"I thought I lost you." she began to sob "They didn't think you would survive." she hugged him close, crying in to his blankets. "Once I left you for an hour and your heart stopped. I came back to find them shocking your heart." she shook more

"Ziva I have to tell you-"

"No!" She interrupted him seriously as she pulled away "Me first, Tony I am not going to loose you like that again." she took a breath

"I love you." they said in unison, both trying to get the first word in.

Then they both looked shocked. Then they smiled.

"Ziva I dreamed you died and it was the worst thing I ever had to go through." he whipered as he held her cheeks "I love you. I will never stop saying it. I am not loosing you. I can not be without you."

She smiled so the whole boring ward lit up.

"For almost five weeks I have been sitting here saying the same thing and hoping against hope you could hear me." she kissed his lips and stroked his hair. "I will never waste a day not telling you how much I need you. I love you."

She blushed "I promised Gibbs that if you ever woke up I would be with you forever and follow you round until you loved me back."

He smiled weakly "Well I do. I love you Ziva."

They never got sick of saying that as they lay there together. Both alive. Both in love.

The End

I wrote this months ago! Oh my god I just wanted to post it for lols. Anyway the chapter after the next chapter of Breaking 12 is written now I just have to do the one between! Love you all!

Gibbslets


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